Surpriv: RFID Surveillance and Privacy

InformationWeek discusses the current status of plans for RFID in US passports, and opposition to same, including from business travel groups:

Some groups are trying to raise widespread opposition to the plan, saying it could make U.S. citizens more vulnerable to terrorist attacks because the chips would broadcast the passport holder’s information. One site, RFID Kills.com, reports that “the State Department wants to turn all U.S. passports into terrorist beacons.”

Some information that’s being disseminated does not sync up with what the government says. For example, the Association of Corporate Travel Executives released a statement Monday that includes this sentence: “The [RFID] signal can be detected up to dozens of feet to tens of yards.” The Office of Passport Policy, Planning, and Advisory Services says the data stored on the chip is secure and only readable within 4 inches.

A group called the Business Travel Coalition also has stated its opposition, saying it’s a “deeply flawed policy and will put American business travelers at risk of identity theft and physical harm.”

Wired Magazine discusses the issue of RFIDs in passports and semantics: commenting on Department of Homeland Security description of plans to use “contactless chips”… aka RFID:

Computer scientists and data-encryption experts, the editors of an RFID industry journal — even the makers of the contactless chips themselves — all agree that the Homeland Security Department is using RFID technology.

But the Homeland Security Department is very carefully avoiding use of the term “RFID.” The department, along with Philips, is also backing a trade group that is branding ID documents with RFID tags as “contactless smartcards.”

“We’d prefer,” said Joseph Broghamer, Homeland Security’s director of authentication technologies, “that the terms ‘RFID,’ or even ‘RF,’ not be used at all (when referring to the RFID-tagged smartcards). Let’s get ‘RF’ out of it altogether.”